Bayxit? One in three Bavarians wants independence from Berlin – poll

Date of publication: 18 07 2017, 11:22

Almost one third of the respondents in Bavaria say they want independence from Germany, according to a new poll, which also showed that the southern region has the strongest secessionist sentiment among all German states.

Thirty-two percent of Bavarians agreed with the statement that their “state should be independent from Germany,” a Bild commissioned survey conducted by the YouGov market research company revealed.

According to Bavarian Radio, 18 percent of respondents strongly agreed with the statement while 14 percent “would rather agree” with it.

The percentage of Bavarians who favor independence is rising the Deutschlandfunk broadcaster reported, adding, that according to a 2011 poll, only about a quarter of Bavarians supported that idea.

According to a 2016 Deutschlandfunk report, up to 40 percent of Bavarians also supported that idea of securing “more freedom” from the federal authorities.

The southern German region appears to have the strongest separatist sentiment among all German states, the poll published Sunday says.

It is followed by the central German region of Thuringia and the small western German state of Saarland located on the French border, where 22 percent of respondents support independence.

One in five Germans in the regions of Saxony, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt also support the idea of their states becoming independent from Berlin, according to the poll.

More than 2,000 people from all German states took part in the poll that was conducted between June 29 and July 5, 2017.

However, any German state’s desire for independence is likely futile as the German constitution does not make provision for the right to secession.

In December 2016, the German Constitutional Court said in its clarification concerning an issue of holding an independence referendum in any German state: “There is no place for the secessionist aspirations of certain states under the constitution.”

Any such move would “violate the constitutional order,” the court added.